Sole (artist)

For the other hip-hop emcee with a similar name, see Solé.

Sole
Birth name	Tim Holland
Also known as	Man's Best Friend
Born	September 25, 1977 (1977-09-25) (age 34) Portland, Maine
Origin	New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Genres	Experimental hip hop, Hip hop, Political Rap
Years active	1992 – present
Labels	Black Canyon Records Anticon Records Fake Four Inc Morr Music 6months 45 Below
Associated acts	Deep Puddle Dynamics, Alias, Doseone, Why?, Jel, Slug, Skyrider, Ceschi, Astronautalis, Noah23, Sage Francis, B. Dolan, Bleubird, Pedestrian, Odd Nosdam, Passage, Jared Paul, Markus Acher, Factor, Kay the Aquanaut, Awol One, Lil B, K-the-I???, Pictureplane, Xiu Xiu, Mestizo, Isaiah Toothtaker, Controller 7, JD Walker, Moodswing9, Radical Face
Website	www.soleone.org

Tim Holland, known as Sole, is an alternative hip hop artist and a co-founder of the Anticon collective/label. Sole is known for his dense and often dark stream-of-consciousness style of rapping. His verses are often filled with abstraction, metaphor and sarcasm while avoiding or deconstructing traditional hip hop topics and cliches. While mostly known for his rapping, Sole is also a producer and has released an instrumental album under the alias Man's Best Friend (styled mansbestfriend). Sole is also part of the group Sole and the Skyrider Band.

Career

Sole recorded his first demo in 1992. At age 15, Sole assembled group called "45 Below Records", which included fellow rapper Alias and Moodswing9 as the DJ (then known as "Cuz the Highlander"). The group released the album Mad Skillz and Unpaid Billz under the name Northern Exposure, selling more than 300 copies. In 1997, Sole, with JD Walker & Moodswing9, released a 12" under the name "Live Poets", garnering college radio play and selling a few thousand copies.

In early 1998, Sole and rapper Pedestrian coined the name "Anticon" and together started a collectively-owned record label under the name. In 1998, Sole, along with Alias and Doseone, traveled to Minneapolis and, together with Slug of Atmosphere, recorded the first official Anticon release: the album Deep Puddle Dynamics. Sole and Pedestrian moved Anticon to California, settling in the Oakland area.

In 2000 Sole released his first official solo album through Anticon, titled Bottle of Humans. This was followed up in 2003 with Selling Live Water. Later that year, Sole moved to Barcelona, Spain. Two years later, after living abroad, Sole released Live from Rome in 2005. Soon after, he moved back to the United States, relocating to Flagstaff, Arizona.

In 2007 Sole, along with the band Skyrider, formed a group called "Sole & The Skyrider Band". They released a self-titled album the same year. In 2009 the album Plastique was released. The album Hello Cruel World was released in 2011.

In 2010 Sole left the Anticon label, citing a desire to further experiment with his music, independently of the collective, and also due to his belief that the label has developed away from what he initially intended it to be.

Aside from his official releases through Anticon, Sole has also released a slew of self-produced albums on his own imprint, Black Canyon. These include various compilations of unreleased material, as well as the releases of his "mansbestfriend" project. Currently, as he is no longer with Anticon, Sole self-releases all his material.

Sole is currently based in Denver, Colorado. He is married to Yasamin Holland, whose name is referenced occasionally in his lyrics.

Discography

Albums

Mad Skillz and Unpaid Billz (1992)

• w/ Alias & Moodswing9, as Northern Exposure
  

What's It All About (1996)

• w/ JD Walker & Moodswing9, as Live Poets
  

Music Without a Face (1998)
The Taste of Rain... Why Kneel? (1999)

• w/ Alias, Doseone & Slug, as Deep Puddle Dynamics
  

Bottle of Humans (2000)
Paint by Number Songs (2001)

• w/ Alias & DJ Mayonnaise, as So-Called Artists
  

uck rt (2001)
We Ain't Fessin' (Double Quotes) (2002)

• w/ Alias, Doseone & Slug, as Deep Puddle Dynamics
  

Man's Best Friend Volume 1 (2002)
Selling Live Water (2003)
Man's Best Friend Volume 2: No Thanks (2003)
Live from Rome (2005)
Man's Best Friend Volume 3: My Own Worst Enemy (2005)
Exhile (2007)
Man's Best Friend Volume 4: Poli.Sci.187 (2007)
Sole and the Skyrider Band (2007)

• w/ Skyrider
  

Desert Eagle Volume 1 (2008)
The Secret History of Underground Rap (2008)
Battlefields (2009)

• w/ Skyrider
  

Plastique (2009)

• w/ Skyrider
  

Man's Best Friend Volume 5 (2011)
Man's Best Friend Volume 6: Radioactive Rain (2011)
Hello Cruel World (2011)

• w/ Skyrider
  

YTX (2011)
Write or Die (2011)

• w/ Skyrider
  

Untitled Project (2011)

• w/ Bleubird & K-the-I???
  

Desert Eagle Volume 2 (2012)

Mixtapes

Nuclear Winter Volume 1 (2009)
Nuclear Winter Volume 2: Death Panel (2011)
Nuclear Winter Volume 3 (2012)^[1]

Compilations

Learning to Walk (2002)
Songs That Went Tin (2005)
Sole and the Skyrider Band Remix LP (2009)
Spring Offensive Volume 1: Nuclear Winter Remixes (2010)
Dispatches from the American Fall (2011)

Singles

Sole (1995, 45 Below)

• w/ Live Poets
  

Respect (1997, 45 Below)

• w/ Live Poets
  

Banquet of Sarcasm (1998, 45 Below)
Rain Men (1999, anticon.)

• w/ Deep Puddle Dynamics
  

Bottle of Humans (1999, anticon.)
Sideshow (2001, Mush Records)

• w/ So-Called Artists
  

Salt on Everything (2002, anticon.)
Plutonium (2003, anticon.)
God Save the Whales (2005)
New Single (2005, anticon.)
Don't Try to Stop It / Rust Belt Fellows (2010, Poetic Dissent)

• w/ Kaigen

Also appears on

"Tragic Comedy" on Rock Paper Scissors (2008) by Noah23
"1 for No Money" on The Free Houdini (2009) by Themselves
"Trouble With Kids" on Naked Dinner (2010) by Time
"Long Live the Short Lived" on The One Man Band Broke Up (2010) by Ceschi
"Don't Jock the Dead" on 13 Stories (2010) by Factor
"Living in a Vacuum" on Lawson Graham (2010) by Factor
"Kill You" on Waterloo (2011) by Kay the Aquanaut
"Murder City" on Fry Cook on Venus (2011) by Noah23
"The Great Deluge" & "Fukushima Tokyo Electric Russian Roulette" on J-A-P-A-N: A Fake Four Inc. Japan Relief Benefit EP (2011) by Fake Four Inc
"Darkside of the Moon" on Terminal Illness (2011) by Noah23 & Krem

See also

• Anticon
• Conscious hip hop
• Alias

External links

• Sole's official website
• anticon's official website

References

1. ^ [1]

• Insound biography

Persondata
Name	Sole
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1977
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death